Rape as a Method of Warfare

[Isabelle Warwicke]

Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda was arrested in Rwanda on Friday. Nkunda has been accused of encouraging soldiers under his command to use rape as a widespread war strategy.

NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/world/africa/24congo.html?_r=1&hp)

Perhaps this might be the beginning of forward movement against the violation of women in that area.

[daBaroness]

This has been going on in a number of African countries for years! They not only rape women - they rape children as well. There are villages where there are only old men and women - and every time the "army" comes through they rape. For some - it is nearly a daily occurence.

To my mind - we'd better serve man ... er womankind by putting our military energies in situations like these rather than shitpits like Iraq.

Hell - just send female soldiers and let 'em shoot the nuts off the rapists! I'd pay to join THAT army!!!

[Ysobelle]

I remember a West Wing where the White House staffers refer to conflict in an African country saying, "They're sleeping in each other's houses." They repeated it several times before explaining that soldiers were breaking into houses and forcing those they found there to rape one another.

That's just not an image one can every forget. I wish it were only fiction, but sexual violence is the tool of the utterly despotic and vile.

[Peaches O Malley]

Women, children and the elderly always seem to be casualties of war..oh I forget its "collateral damage." I for one would like to see the fuckwits that start this shit pay for it themeselves. :unamused:

[Lady Hefron]

This has been going on for ever. There have even been reports of "AIDS Battalions" raping to deliberately infect villages. Amnesty International reported on this.

[daBaroness]

Reporter Lisa Ling has done extensive research and reporting on this kind of heinous brutality in the Darfur region of the Sudan, the Congo, Sierra Leone and others and been on Oprah as a special correspondent on these issues. The footage and interviews shown were unbelievably shocking. I'm still thinking an army of women with AKs could shoot the balls off all those sick bastards!